Unveiled
by birdywings
Summary: Perhaps masks were not worn to conceal what lay beneath. But rather, to discover who was bold enough to search beyond.


**Hello readers!**

**So yes, I realize Halloween was two days ago, (for Canada anyway), but I just couldn't seem to resist:)  
><strong>**So this is a oneshot only, and if any of you are interested, I have three other Jesla stories aside from this, (A Winter's Promise, A Winter's Spell and Wings), and I am currently writing a crossover between Eleanor and Park and Fangirl. Other than those stories, I have an epilogue for Eleanor and Park and The Fault In Our Stars and a oneshot for Percy Jackson. Oh and a Nancy Drew story I published ages agoXD  
><strong>**So yeah, if you guys could take a look at my stories and read and review it would really mean the world to me:)**

**Anyway, hope this little story of mine is to your liking and please review!:)  
>-birdywings<strong>

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><p>Unveiled<p>

_"Stay away. Please stay away. Why won't they stay away?" _

_"Because, dear child," The spirit of winter spoke to the young princess.  
>His words bled from his lips in a voice as soft and as gentle as his hands were when he touched hers and slowly pride them from her temples one finger at a time.<em>

_"Because it is Halloween my Princess. The night when the lights are away and the shadows will play." _

_She gave a vigorous shake of her head, as if the motion would ward off the troubles that haunted her mind.  
>"No, no, no. I don't like them. I don't want to see them. Please keep them away Jack?" The child spoke in only a whisper, too afraid to even speak in the presence of such horrors.<em>

_A light laugh left the edge of the spirit's lips, as if it couldn't grasp the lip of the edge any longer.  
>"It isn't that bad once you look past the masks they wear." <em>

_"But why do they wear they wear them? Why would they wish to pose as someone else?"_

_"Because it is the one night that all those who wish to receive the chance to create a little fun while dressed as whoever or whatever they desire."_

_"Wearing a mask does not make you someone or something other than who you actually are. It only means you are the same person underneath a mask placed over your face that you wear to conceal all you wish to remain hidden from those around you."_

_He felt the tug of a grin at the corner of his mouth and allowed it to take shape in the every muscle of his body.  
>Even at her young age, the Princess was already so resourceful. So clever, quick-witted and wise, far beyond her years. And even then, when she was no taller than that of the spirit's staff of a tree limb and with no more than a decade spent on the earth, the spirit of winter saw through the passage of time that she would grow into a wise and talented queen. She would be respected and loved by all those who crossed paths with her. She would grow into a beautiful young woman and find a strapping young lad for her king. And even as the years washed over the kingdom of Arendelle and Queen Elsa became withered and wrinkled in her old age, she would make a fine and grand ruler until the conclusion of her days. And during her final days, Jack Frost would still be there, watching over and guarding her from the air hovering above her shoulder. Whispering in the wind that swept through the window to her bedchambers. Standing at the foot of her grave when all those had moved on and forgotten that of their beloved queen. <em>

_He would still be there.  
>He was the guardian of her childhood.<br>And he would be until the end of time._

_"Yes, Elsa. Truer words never spoken."_

* * *

><p>It was no less than ten years later that the spirit of winter found himself standing in the last place he had ever expected to wind up.<br>It was in the month of October, on the evening of the thirty-first that the lights were away and the shadows were to play.  
>Under a sky oily with ink of black and flecked with a silver sprinkle of distant stars that burned great distances from the earth, leaves painted and slathered of rich, golden embers and oranges as deep as the shade a setting-sun cast into the sky, fell from their twigs high on the limbs of trees in the outlying woods. They tumbled through the air one by one at the change of season when carried off and swept away by the gusts of wind that cared little for them. But, it was the leaves of the heart, their roots grounded firmly and digging deep into the veins of a soul from the very center of their being, those were the leaves that no wind, not even as great or even as mighty as that of a winding gust of a raging vortex that swirled upon itself, could touch a single tip of a finger to.<p>

Just before the stroke of midnight that evening, the people of Arendelle dressed in their finest of clothes and arrived at the castle from far and wide. For it was in the ballroom of the palace that a royal masquerade ball was being held in the celebration of the spookiest evening of the year.  
>Men wore suits of black velvet and dress shirts of white with cuffed sleeves. Cravats were added and tied around their necks as compliments to their uniforms, which never ceased to attract the eye of attention from some of the women. Especially those of which fancied men who knew how to dress well and appear both sharp and dashing in suits. Many of the elder male's crowns of a receding hairline would be topped with that of a black top-hat, and they would tote in their white-gloved hands a cane.<br>The women would flounce gaily through the set of double-doors and onto the floor of wood while grasping tightly to their escort's arms. Each wore a gown adorned with lovely patterns of paisley and floral, collars and sleeves frilly of lace, puffy with the thick folds of skirts that caved around their legs underneath like a tent, and tight with the bodices that hugged their midsections firmly. Their manes of flowing locks in auburns as red as the flames of dawn, blacks as dark as the ink of dusk, and blonds as white as the first snow of winter, were tied and tucked away atop their heads in a collection of pins and clips. In their hands they delicately caressed the papery material of fans, which were embellished of lace and paintings of blossoms blooming to the streaks of dawn, and upon their fingers glinted the sparkle of gems in the candlelight. From their ears dangled rubies, emeralds and sapphires of all shades and colors. And resting upon the soft, creamy patch of skin just over the section of their chests revealed by the low-cut in the bosom material to their gowns, were the gold chains of necklaces, and from them hung the pendents of encrusted diamonds neatly arranged in a pattern.

Ecstatic and elated all the guests were at the charming scene of the ball. Jack-o-lanterns with disfigured and disoriented features sat propped through the room, lighting with their flames the path of the dance floor. Desserts of succulent and scrumptious sweetness along with glasses of liquid frothed and sparkling of champagne were being served from several platters of silver, all of which rested in the palms of the royal staff as they weaved and bent their way through the cluster of chatting guests and pairs of dancing couples. From up above their heads like diamonds in the night-sky, hung the crystals of chandeliers. They burned and glinted of gold in the candlelight. So bright yet with a soft texture of warmth to their glare, it was as if the sky itself had arrived to attend the ball. And to the guests who took to the floor, sweeping each other up in one another's arms, and proceeded apace in a rhythmic pattern of footwork in the fashion of a waltz, it was almost as if they danced beneath the very sky of night. Dark of dusk, inky of black, and twinkling of the stars slowly forming their constellations in the distance in the twilight.

Around him they danced. Hand in hand. Arm in arm. Their bodies drawn into one another by the entwinement of their fingers. In a series of leaps and skips in their footwork, the formations of couples frolicked and pranced their paths upon the dance floor to a lively tune that played and emanated from the instruments that the assembled orchestra strummed, beat, and breathed into song.

The ember flames of candles flickered at the corners of the blue in his orbs, but he had the vision to see only what lay beyond the edges.  
>The object of his gaze lay in between her words. Words wrinkled, withered, and thin of age. Words old of a decade, yet of a lifetime of memories, which gradually began to slip from within the grasp of his fingertips. The memories were all around him, and they were too much. So much that he could no longer blink the smudges of frolicking and merriment once more into the clear painting it had been no more than a moment ago. It all dissolved into a vision, too merry and gay to be real.<p>

_"It is a mask. And wearing one does not make you someone else whom you wish to be, but only conceals what lies beneath."_

He could hear the whisper of her voice speaking those words now.  
>Hushed. Soft. And silent.<br>Yet, her words reached his ears in a single breath over the clamor playing out before his eyes.  
>And then, when he had once more blinked the smudges and splotches back into the painting of distinctive colors and shades, he laid his two orbs of blue upon her.<br>There she stood tucked away in the corner the farthest distance from him, folded in upon herself so as to go as the undetected phantom she wished to remain. Her young, yet grown figure was clothed in the skirts of a shimmering gown of blue. It left her shoulder bare, revealing the patch of smooth radiant skin that dressed her form and lay just beneath the surface. Its transparent cloak was festooned with the spiraling designs of snowflakes, and they sparkled like the first fall of snow did when illuminated by the rose and violet flames of dawn in the light of the candles that burned throughout the room. Her locks of blond cascaded in a braid of entwined strands like a river of snow flecked with the sparks of encrusted ice down her back. Upon her face lay a mask, feathered, laced, and sequined of a silvery-white. So enchanting. So bewitching she appeared in his line of sight. It was as if she had materialized from the shadows as a vision, waiting in the corner where she concealed all that she was.  
>But he saw her.<p>

He saw her now. A flame that burned and crackled too bright for the darkness threatening to extinguish her. A vision of a specter who was too beautiful to ever have to shed a tear. Too pure to be genuine, he would swear his eyes were taking him for a fool if he was not so certain that it was her.  
>But it was her. He was certain of it.<br>As he had memorized the every plain of her face. The every detail of her features. The every corner and shape of her frame. Her every shade and flush of color. Her skin, silky of cream. Her lips, rosy of a pink. Her eyes. He could never forget the tint of blue that painted their irises. Bluer than the ocean itself, and miles more endless than the deepest of chasms. It was as if they held the very sky within them.  
>He saw her now.<br>Not for the mask she wore. But for what he saw beyond the veil she hid behind.

By his feet, he was carried out to the center of the dance floor and came to stand in the midst of an ocean composed of people. They shoved and prodded against him, rushing and washing over him in the waves of a greater hurricane. But he did not sink. Nor did he sputter or gasp for air under the suffocation of the currents. For she was all that kept him afloat.  
>He did not know what reply he would receive when he extended his arm into the space between them, his hand searching for hers through the ripples. But he felt a rapturous wave of joy leak over him when her hand found his through the water. Her palm slid and fit into his perfectly, her fingers lacing with his one at a time, as if they were the two pieces to the puzzle whose only place they fit was together. As one.<p>

He gently drew her into him. She felt all ten of his fingers, cold as ice like the hands of a ghost, slither up her spine and come to rest on her lower-back. She allowed the breath she hadn't realized she was holding to leak from her lips flushed of a rosy pink as her hand snaked along his arm, slowly wriggling its way to his shoulder. His grip tightened slightly around her waist, as he did not wish to allow her to slip through his fingers again.  
>The couple was then swept away by the current, leaking through the ripples like a pair of phantoms in the night. Transparent and intangible. Their feet soon fell into tune with one another. Soon sank into the rhythm of the music that played all around them and cast its spell of a hazy trance upon them. And one by one, the two specters watched their surroundings dissolve and melt into on another when the inky ran and bled into smudges of splotches, leaving only the painting of Jack Frost and Princess Elsa.<p>

He needed not to unveil her face of the mask she wore. Not because he knew or even remembered who lay beneath, but because he had within his orbs of an icy blue the vision to see beyond the veil.  
>And it was then that the spirit of winter realized that perhaps masks were not worn to conceal what lay beneath the surface. But rather, to discover who was bold enough to search beyond.<p> 


End file.
